Silent Grief
by LainellaFay
Summary: A freak accident takes his sense of hearing away. Marui wishes that it was all a horrible nightmare. Alas, reality is never so kind.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis or the characters.**

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**-1-**

_.~._

_"We long for silence, yet we fear it."_

.~.

Purple eyes fluttered open, slowly adjusting themselves to the brightly lit room. Marui blinked repeatedly as he gazed up at the dull white paint on the ceiling. He wriggled his toes, then his fingers, before he attempted to sit up. A sharp pain pounded in his head and Marui cried out, or, at least he thought he did.

Where was he?

Marui slowly glanced around the white room. There was a machine by his bed; Marui had more than enough experience to know that he was in a hospital. The only strange thing that occurred to him was that it was completely silent. No beeping from the machine, no creaking of the bed as he moved, and the absence of the cry which he was pretty sure he made. Marui fumbled around, before pressing the button that would bring a nurse in.

He brought his hands up to his ears while he waited in the silence. Except, all he felt were bandages; he couldn't even feel his hair, not a single strand. Suddenly, there was someone by his side. A nurse, clothed in a blue nurse's uniform.

Marui was startled. He should have been able to hear the door slide open, or even footsteps. There were none.

His shock must had been expressed clearly on his face as the nurse waved her hands in front of her as if a type of sign language which Marui couldn't understand. Her mouth was forming words, and Marui felt his heart beat quicker and quicker, as indicated by the machine.

He looked frantically at the machine, the numbers measuring his heart rate rapidly increasing, and back at the nurse, who was now gripping him tightly by the shoulders. Marui saw several other nurses and even doctors rush into his room, all of them were moving their mouths; communicating frantically, Marui thinks. However, not a single sound escaped their mouths, or, at least, they didn't float into Marui's ears.

It wasn't long before he blacked out again.

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**A/N: Comments? :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**-2-**

His mother's tearstained face greeted him when he awoke. It transformed into a smile that was happy yet sad at the same time; Marui finally understood what people meant by bittersweet.

He felt hands on his leg; it had a cast on it which he didn't notice before. Turning his head, Marui saw his brothers looking at him with watery eyes.

_Don't cry like sissies, you're big and strong men aren't you?_ He wanted to tell them, but couldn't bring his heart to. He had a feeling that something was wrong, terribly wrong, and acting cool was not going to solve anything.

A man with a long white coat and holding a brown clipboard appeared at the end of the bed – Dr. Amayoshi – the name tag read.

Marui observed his parents bow, Dr. Amayoshi mimicking their actions.

Two nurses entered, wheeling in a board which had pictures stuck onto it. X-ray photos, Marui reckons; many of them resembled a human's skull and various body parts.

Dr. Amayoshi looked at him with the typical poker face any doctor wears. There wasn't a single hint of sympathy, sorrow or even a polite smile. Couldn't doctors be more friendly and give their patients a little more hope?

Or was there really no more hope for him?

Marui pushed the negative thoughts out of his head. It frightened him that there was an absence of sound around him, but the doctor was here, he was in a hospital, he was going to get better, right?

The touch of his brothers' hands lingered on his leg even after his mother brought them out of the room. Marui glanced at his father when he squeezed his hand. Marui had not noticed this earlier, but his father looked as though he was trying hard not to cry – for the sake of his son, no, family.

When Marui looked back at Dr. Amayoshi, the doctor had a small whiteboard in his hands with words addressed to him.

_Do you know where you are?_

Marui nodded slowly. Of course he knew where he was, he hadn't had amnesia nor was he brain-dead.

His father squeezed his hand again. One of the nurses placed a whiteboard similar to the one Dr. Amayoshi was holding onto Marui's lap. Marui gingerly brushed his free hand against the smooth and cold surface wondering why they had handed it over to him.

_What is your name? _Marui read when he looked back up.

What in the world…? Marui frowned and opened his mouth, but Dr. Amayoshi shook his head and gestured towards the whiteboard in his hands.

**_Marui Bunta._** Marui scribbled down. Various thoughts flew in and out of his head. Dr. Amayoshi responded by placing a mark of some kind on a paper.

_How old are you?_

Marui furrowed his eyebrows and slammed the marker onto the whiteboard. Dr. Amayoshi's expression remained unfazed. He only held up the question once more. Marui narrowed his eyes and picked up the marker once more, squeezing it tightly in his palm as he wrote down the answer.

Marui answered questions he deemed as pointless over and over again, getting the same response each time; a small mark on a piece of paper, until one particular question, one Marui was certain (he had been certain for all the others) that he was right.

_What is the date today?_

Marui had replied with no hesitation, that was nothing to hesitate about, until he saw Dr. Amayoshi's reaction; no movement of the doctor's hand and no mark on the paper, only a stare in his direction. Marui decided that even Tezuka from Seigaku had more of an expression than Dr. Amayoshi.

Dr. Amayoshi didn't explain the unusual behaviour, and instead picked up the small whiteboard as if the past ten seconds had not occurred.

(Strange, Marui had thought.)

_I'm going to tell you about your condition._

Finally some useful information!

Marui felt his father's hand tremble against his own.

(If only he knew the reason for his father's reaction.)

Marui didn't remember much about the next few minutes. One of the nurses using a pointer to point towards the 'photos'; Marui was right, they were X-ray photos, of him in fact and Dr. Amayoshi scribbling down complex medical terminology that Marui didn't understand, didn't _want_ to understand onto the small whiteboard – his 'something-something-something' had been damaged.

But there was just one sentence that Marui remembered very clearly. A lone sentence which seemed to be written in permanent marker on the whiteboard which Dr. Amayoshi was holding. A sentence which Marui could still see – every single stroke, the way the ink of the marker got fainter at the end of the strokes – even after it had been rubbed out. It was as if someone had snapped a picture of it in high-definition and downloaded it into his brain.

_You will not be able to hear anything anymore._

What? That was Marui's first thought. They had to be joking right? Was this a prank? Where was the camera?

_'If this is Niou's idea of a prank, that son of a bitch better keep an eye open when he sleeps tonight!'_ A pointless threat really, seeing that Niou was not in the room and Marui was strapped to an IV bag sitting on a hospital bed with more than one or two broken bones.

Then it started to dawn on him, that was the only explanation as to why there was an absence of sound ever since he woke up and found himself in the hospital. Dr. Amayoshi's expression was also so serious but Marui didn't know whether or not to trust the doctor's expressions or lack thereof.

He was not going to be able to hear anything anymore? Marui sat wide-eyed on the bed, his father had long released his hand and left the room in tears.

How could his own father be so weak and leave him alone to accept all of these rubbish!

Marui knew that he was being selfish, it wasn't his father's fault that he was like that, in fact, it was the first time Marui had seen his father cry. All of Marui's emotions were so jumbled up that he did not know how to feel.

Shocked? Angry? Sad? Neither seemed to be right.

He was deaf.

He was not going to be able to listen to music anymore, hear his mother nag at him endlessly, hell, he wasn't even going to be able to _hear_ anyone's voice, even his owns again. How was he going to live his life from now on? In this sickening silence filled with dread where everything is like pictures in a book, except moving.

At least he still had –

"What about tennis?"

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**A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! You all made me so happy! I never expected this many reviews for the first chapter! I'm sorry for not replying to all the reviews, but I do read them and get butterflies fluttering like crazy (in a good way of course) inside me when I do. **

**I will try to update this more regularly, actually wait, don't hold my word for it. I'm known to say things without actually _performing _them. It's a bad habit of mine which I need to fix. Now, I should leave, before I start rambling on and on without stopping.**

**Comments, critiques, favourites and alerts are all greatly appreciated!  
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	3. Chapter 3

**-3-**

The first crack appeared on Dr. Amayoshi's hardened expression. It was minute, but it was there. If this was a film, and if one would insert a voiceover of Dr. Amayoshi's thoughts, it would be along the lines of, 'Huh?'

Dr. Amayoshi glanced towards the nurses; both of them shrugged, confusion written all over their faces.

"What about tennis?"

Silent shake of heads and shrugs.

"Hey. I'm talking to you, what about tennis?"

Dr. Amayoshi stared straight at Marui, who was looking slightly deranged.

"Hey 'doc, I can still play right? Tennis?"

Slow closure of eyes. Slowly opening again. Like a blink in slow motion.

_Playing lightly is alright, but tournaments and rigorous training is not recommended for the time being._

_Overexerting yourself may bring more complications to your condition._

"Huh?"

Did he read that right?

"Wh-what do you mean?"

_'Without tennis, I would just be –' _

_Marui, I suggest that you do not try to speak._

_Some of your pronunciation is incorrect._

Bitter laughter emerged from the teenager's lips. "You're joking right? I can speak fine, I just can't hear anything, but I can speak perfectly fine. It's temporary anyway right? I'll be able to go back to normal in a few days won't I?"

_I'm very sorry Marui, but this cannot be reversed._

"Hey, what are you talking about?" The expression on Marui's face sent chills down the doctor's spine. "You're a doctor aren't you? Cure me already! I have to play tennis, I have to!"

The two nurses immediately stepped forwards.

"I'm a regular! I can't just quit like that! I have to train with my teammates! We have to win the championship, this is our last chance!"

_I am sorry to say this, but there is no cure for deafness. We're trying our best to find a cure, but right now, it is incurable._

No.

NO.

NO!

There has to be a way, there just had to be!

_Marui. I know this is hard to accept, but this is your new life now._

_It saddens me to say this, for someone young like you, but you would probably never be able to live your life the way you did again._

"NO!" Marui yelled. Tears flowed profusely down his cheeks. His throat was sore from the lack of water and yelling, but it didn't matter. He grabbed the small whiteboard and marker that was on his lap and threw it across the room, the objects slamming into the wall.

"GET OUT! GET OUT!" he repeatedly screamed, eyes flaring with anger.

Marui felt fingers gripping tightly on his arms and he roared.

"LEAVE- me…a…lone…" Marui's yells transformed into soft mutters as he felt his eyelids get heavier and heavier. Drowsiness overtook him and he fell back down onto the spring-less hospital mattress.

.~.

_Do you believe in God?_

_Why do you ask?_

_Because life is so unfair…_

.~.

_'Why me…?'_

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**A/N: Short chapter again... I don't know, I tried to extend it, but it just wouldn't work. Words just don't seem to flow for some reason.****  
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**Guest:** I hope your question have been answered in this chapter. The last sentence was Marui speaking, so he knows what he is saying (or at least what he thinks he's saying) but he can't hear it. **  
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